Three CEOs turn backs on Trump as Merck, Intel quit council

Elon Musk is the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla. Congress was very close to giving SpaceX a leg up on launches.

Elon Musk is the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla. Congress was very close to giving SpaceX a leg up on launches.

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Campbell Soup Co. said CEO Denise Morrison (seen at a Feb. 23 meeting at the White House) would remain a member of the president’s manufacturing council because “we believe it continues to be important for Campbell to have a voice and provide input on matters that will affect our industry, our company and our employees in support of growth.” less

Campbell Soup Co. said CEO Denise Morrison (seen at a Feb. 23 meeting at the White House) would remain a member of the president’s manufacturing council because “we believe it continues to be important for ... more

Photo: Evan Vucci /Associated Press

Three CEOs turn backs on Trump as Merck, Intel quit council

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(Bloomberg) -- Could America’s first CEO president lose America’s CEOs?

It was a question that came to the fore again Monday when first Merck & Co.’s Kenneth Frazier, then Under Armour Inc.’s Kevin Plank and Intel Corp.’s Brian Krzanich stepped down from a White House business group set up to advise Donald Trump.

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While none mentioned the president, Frazier, one of the country’s most-prominent black chief executive officers, quit the council as Trump was being assailed for failing to quickly condemn white supremacists for deadly violence at a rally Saturday in Charlottesville, Virginia. Frazier said he was acting on a “matter of personal conscience.”

Trump shot back on Twitter Tuesday morning, saying, “For every CEO that drops out of the Manufacturing Council, I have many to take their place. Grandstanders should not have gone on. JOBS!”

Plank and Krzanich, who are white, referred to the charged atmosphere in the U.S. Plank said he was quitting because his athletic-wear company “engages in innovation and sports, not politics,” and Krzanich, who leads the world’s largest semiconductor maker, cited a “divided political climate” and declared, “The current environment must change, or else our nation will become a shadow of what it once was and what it still can and should be.”

Trump on Monday eventually bowed to pressure and denounced racist hate groups, but the damage was done. Frazier and his compatriots joined the ranks of Elon Musk of Tesla Inc., Bob Iger of Walt Disney Co. and Travis Kalanick of Uber Technologies Inc. -- executives who walked away from business panels Trump touted, taking the unusual steps of publicly distancing themselves from a sitting president.

“The value of the advisory council goes down when respected members leave over issues of principle,” said James Post, professor of management emeritus for the Questrom School of Business at Boston University. “Whereas the president could have claimed to learn from the council, now it seems that he only listens when they agree with his opinion.”

Frazier’s departure earned the head of the pharmaceutical giant angry tweets from Trump, with one making an all-caps jab about costly prescription drugs and another griping that Merck is a leader in high prices and in sending jobs overseas.

Plank, who issued his resignation Monday evening, came under fire earlier this year from Under Armour brand ambassadors, including Golden State Warriors point guard Stephen Curry, for comments the CEO made about Trump being a pro-business asset in the White House. What’s more, some of the white supremacists in Charlottesville were photographed in Under Armour apparel, a fact noted in posts on the company’s Twitter page Monday, which was crowded with calls for a product boycott if Plank didn’t resign from the council.

As for Intel’s Krzanich, his Twitter account was peppered Monday by pleas for him to quit the White House group after he posted that “there should be no hesitation in condemning hate speech or white supremacy by name.”

Whatever their motivations for exiting, any CEO joining the advisory council should’ve known what to expect because there was little mystery about Trump’s policy positions, said Nick Donatiello, a lecturer on governance topics at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. “You can say ‘Gee, couldn’t some of this have been anticipated?”’

Of course, the CEOs remaining on the advisory group -- including those from Dow Chemical Co., General Electric Co. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. -- all have their own “risk calculations” to make, said John Rice, CEO of Management Leadership for Tomorrow, a nonprofit group that helps companies, including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google, find minority talent. And “they know they will get called out.”

Trump’s Twitter fury does seem to hold less powder these days. While his critical posts of companies or their executives have exacted retribution in the stock market in the past, Merck’s stock never faltered Monday -- closing about half a percentage point higher for a second straight day of gains.

Still, most corporate leaders continue walking the narrow line, working with the Trump administration to help shape policies while aiming not to alienate customers and shareholders who oppose Trump.

“Having a place at the table when big issues are being discussed” is of great important to executives and also to the president, Post said. “There is nothing more credible than the CEO’s voice in issues that matter.”

Business leaders, including JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s Jamie Dimon and Apple Inc.’s Tim Cook, denounced racial intolerance, condemned hate speech or expressed shock over Saturday’s events in Charlottesville, where a rally participant rammed a group of counter-demonstrators with his car, killing one and injuring at least 19 others.

But publicly issued applause for Frazier from his colleagues was scant. One, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co.’s Meg Whitman, said in a tweet: “I’m thankful we have business leaders such as Ken to remind America of its better angels.” Unilever NV’s Paul Polman praised Frazier for standing up “for the moral values that made this country what it is.”

It was glaring that there weren’t similar comments from those CEOs advising the president as members of the various councils, said Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, senior associate dean for leadership studies at the Yale School of Management.

“They are all afraid, individually, to stand out,” he said. “It’s absolutely fine to have a seat at the table -- but you have to open up your mouth.”

The CEOs who resigned from the White House groups earlier did so over policy disagreements, with Musk and Iger leaving in June to protest Trump’s decision to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris international agreement on climate and Kalanick departing because of the president’s stance on immigration. Kalanick resigned as CEO in June.

Most of the companies with CEOs on the manufacturing panel didn’t respond to requests for comment or declined to comment. Those that did reinforced their support for diversity and opposition to bigotry, while stressing the value of being engaged with the president on business matters.

Campbell Soup Co. said CEO Denise Morrison would remain a member because “we believe it continues to be important for Campbell to have a voice and provide input on matters that will affect our industry, our company and our employees in support of growth.”

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said the union is “assessing our role” on the manufacturing panel, which he said in a statement “has yet to hold a real meeting.” At this point, he said, “There are real questions into the effectiveness of this council to deliver real policy that lifts working families.”

Who’s next? That’s the big debate, said Davia Temin, head of the New York-based crisis-management firm Temin & Co. “This conversation is viral in boardrooms right now.”